I was a cop.
Should have seen this coming.
Blinded by rage and painful remorse for my beautiful girl, I was putty in his hands.
Taking a deep breath, I waited until my composure returned, letting the mask of indifference slip over my face before I turned back to Brad, knowing I had to allow him to believe he’d won this round; no matter how much it grated on me.
“What do you want?”
Gone was the sneer of his humored malice and all that was left across his face was fury, same as mine except his, wasn’t justified.
“You thought you could take her from me? She was mine first.”
A scoff met my ears as he leaned closer, his maddened eyes assessing me as he finished what he’d lured me here to say.
“She will always belong to me.”
The thin thread of composure I’d had snapped in two.
I didn’t remember pulling my piece and training it on his head.
Didn’t recall wrapping my angered fingers around his throat and squeezing until he pled for his meaningless life.
All I saw was Emberly. Her face, littered with horrid bruises.
Her eyes, fear filled and lifeless. Her trembling body, as she cried against my chest. Her pleading with me not to go after her attacker, afraid of losing me.
Fight to the death. That’s what it was.
Laws ceased to exist.
The chains of societies rules didn’t stop me. I was doing this for her.
I would do anything to ensure her safety.
I love you, Emberly.
Darkness.
Chapter Twenty Six[r2]
Emberly
THE SUBTLE BEEPING of the machines in the small, dark hospital room lured me to open my eyes and I felt the hand in mine twitch, the large hand engulfing mine suddenly tightening. It had been a whole forty-eight hours since the accident that put Tristan here and even though he wasn’t here, I could practically feel his will to live emanating off of his sleeping form. He was a fighter, I knew that. He had too many people who needed him in this life to leave it, just yet.
He knew that didn’t he?
Squeeze. His large, pale hand gripped mine much tighter this time and I knew, it couldn’t be a twitch like some of his doctors had warned us of.
He was waking up!
“Oh my god…Tristan? Can you hear me, can you squeeze my hand again?”
I stood by his bedside, moving away from his grasp only to push the button to alert the doctors that he had woken up.
“Not a child, Emberly. I can hear you just fine.” A burst of laughter bubbled up and out of my chest at his gruff statement, his eyes opening just enough to look at me and when they did, a faint, humored smile graced his pale face.
“You’re awake.” I dumbly said, not believing it quite yet.
“Seems that way. Where’s my woman?”
Looking behind me to the slightly open door of his room, I shook my head, unsure of where I’d heard Ashlee say she was going. I think the cafeteria.
“I’m not sure.”
His thick, black eyebrows instantly drew together, agitation covering the playful look in his eyes only a moment before.
It could have been the pain medication heightening his mood, I wasn’t sure.
I knew just how much he cared for my best friend and how fiercely protective he was over her. Almost as much as my Hudson was.
“She should fucking be here. Go find her.”
“Tris-” I placed a gentle hand on his shoulder to stop him from doing what I was sure he wanted to right then; going to wherever she was.
“Where the fuck is she? I wake up from God knows how long in this stupid place and she’s not here? Wait- how long has it been?” I saw the devastated need for her in his dark, wide eyes and swallowing hard, I stepped away just a step- giving him some space.
Twisting my hands in front of me, I wasn’t sure how much to tell him.
He’d been through so much and I didn’t want to add to that only mere minutes after he’d woken up from his coma.
“Do you remember the accident?” Tristan’s eyes widened at my words and slowly nodding his head, he brought an agitated hand to move through his hair before responding.
“Yeah. How long, Emberly?”
“Four days.”
“And she’s been here?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sure she’s just grabbing some food…”
“Babe?”
The word was spoken so softly, I barely heard it but one look at Tristan, I knew he could have heard it in the middle of the loudest room.
Turning my head toward the voice, Ashlee stood with her arms wrapped around herself, a brown bag from the cafeteria hanging from one of her hands as she stared across the room at the man she loved.
The man she almost lost…
“It’s okay, Ash. He’s okay.”
She didn’t budge.
I was betting that her emotions were overwhelming her and that she just needed some space and time to realize that what she was seeing, was real. The energy in the room seemed to shift as Tristan reached out for her hand from the hospital bed he was attached to, his eyes pleading with her as he spoke for the first time since she’d entered the room.
“I’m right here, Gorgeous. Come here, fuck, come here.”
Ashlee looked from his face, etched in concern and annoyance of the situation to his hand and back again. Nonetheless, she just shook her head, backing away from his grasp.
It wasn’t like her.
She was fearless and kind and loving, to every single person that she met.
She didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
From the obvious shaking of her shoulders and the rigid way she held herself, I thought she was in shock. I stepped toward her just as a loud, ripping sound permeated the air and heavy footsteps landed on the laminate floor.
“Tristan! What are you doing, your injuries…”
He’d torn the I.V and sensors from his arm and was standing beside the bed, his massive frame shaking with the effort I knew it took him not to pull her into his arms and shield her from whatever was running through her mind, halting her from moving toward him.
“She’s my everything, Emberly. How am I not supposed to go to her?”
He damn near growled the words at me and I nodded, stepping back as he quickly made his way to her, stopping only a foot away of where she still stood, frozen. I don’t think she realized who was standing there, not until his hand gripped her chin and moved up to hold her face in a gentle, yet firm grasp.
“Look at me, Ash. Fuckin’ feel me. I’m okay, pretty girl.”
It took a minute for her eyes to dilate and her tremors to subside but when they did and her eyes looked up at him, you could have felt the connection they had hanging in the air.
“Tristan!”
Her arms quickly wrapped around his neck, his hands lifting her up his body so her legs could wind around his waist and as he held her there, comforting her and murmuring how much he needed her, how he would never leave her, something inside of me broke.
Because as I watched my best friend reunite with the man she loved, all I could think about was Hudson and how he’d left to find Brad after I’d begged him not to. He was a stubborn man and his protective instincts were motivating his choices. What I wanted didn’t matter in the face of the danger Hudson felt I was in. I couldn’t help the sinking feeling in my gut that told me something would go wrong.
Please come back to me, Hudson.
“I’m going to, um find your doctor.”
I mumbled before closing the door behind me, leaning on it for support for long minutes before my legs felt steady enough to walk to the nurses desk around the corner of the hallway.
“Is he awake?”
Ellie was standing behind it as I approached but as soon as she saw my face, she rushed over, engulfing me in an embrace I hadn’t known I needed until that very, moment.
“He’s okay, Elli
e. He’s okay.”
She didn’t release me as she released a heavy, sigh of relief against my shoulder.
“Thank God. Ashlee…”
“She’s in there with him. I thought I’d give them some time before letting family in to see him.”
Nodding, she pulls away, looking at me with concern but I shake her off.
“I’m fine, I promise. Can you page Doctor Sinclair to his room? I think I’m going to go into the chapel for a bit.”
Understanding softened her gaze as she looked at me and when she nodded, I slipped past her and moved quickly down the hallway, eager for some distance from the reminders of Hudson I saw around every corner.
If something happened to him…
I pushed the heavy, wooden door to the chapel open, refusing to think like that.
He’d been in danger every day, chasing bad guys and putting them away.
This was no different, I told myself.
No, it was.
This time, he wasn’t putting his life on the line for his job or his badge or his shield.
This one was for me.
***
HI MOM,” I said, forcing the words through the lump in my throat, emotions I’d refused to feel for so long after her passing resurfacing and I felt them all.
Anger, for the man I’d thought of as my father when really all he’d ever been was a monster and an abuser.
Pain for the woman that was taken too early from this world, before she found the strength to leave him.
Regret for all of the times I could have done something, anything to stop his abuse and cruelty towards my mother, but I hadn’t.
But most of all, I just missed her.
I missed the way she would sing when she thought no one was listening.
I missed the beautiful songs she’d sing to me when I was young, lulling me to sleep with promises of a better life.
In a lot of ways, it still felt like yesterday that I learned the news.
I was in school at the time, when a guidance counselor pulled me into her office and my grandmother met me with one of her long, comforting hugs.
I was too young to truly understand that the injuries that caused the brain bleed that took her life were caused by my own fathers hands.
She’d told the doctors that she was clumsy, she fell down the stairs while doing laundry that morning.
Mom had lied.
It wasn’t laundry day and she wasn’t normally clumsy or careless like that.
No, it was him.
He killed her.
My hands were clenched into fists in my lap as I tried to reign in the hopelessness that sent chills down my spine. The same way as it did every time my thoughts returned to my childhood and the darkness that I lived in for so many years.
Looking up at the ceiling, I closed my eyes tightly.
I didn’t have to live like that anymore.
I had love and happiness and safety in my life now and something else I never would have imagined having.
A man that loved me.
Hudson.
“I know I haven’t talked to you in a while. It’s not that I didn’t miss you, Mom. I miss you, so much. I guess it’s just been hard for me to think about you, because it’s not fair. You should still be here. We should be together, making memories that I can tell my children about. Wow, I don’t know if I’ll have them, but if I do, I want you to know that I’ll try to be the best mom I can be. I just wish you were here to help me.”
My hands begun to shake in my lap as I went on, a weight of pent up emotion pressing on my chest and I knew I had to get them out, now.
I waited too long, trying to move on with my life, forget the past.
But I didn’t want to do that, anymore.
She was my mom.
“I’m happy, now. I have friends, a job I love and I met someone. I think you’d really love him. His name is Hudson.”
I swallowed past the tears that clogged my throat as the soft sound of the door to the chapel opening caught my attention.
“Emberly?”
Swiping under my puffy eyes, I turned and waved at my best friend, glad to see the light of happiness returning to her eyes.
“Hey. I was just…”
“I know, Emberly. I heard. I think it’s really good that your coming to terms with everything. It wasn’t long ago that I wondered if you ever would.”
Nodding, I took her hand as she sat down beside me on the long, wooden bench.
“I think it’s time.”
Her warm, arms wrapped around my shoulders and I sniffed back the rest of my sadness, squeezing her equally as tight before she leaned back, away from me, a serious look crossing her normally soft features.
“Tristan just received a call from his sergeant. It seems that Hudson’s car was tracked to an old warehouse up the highway. He thought you should know.”
It took a solid minute for what she was saying to make sense, but when it did, it felt like all of the air drained from my body.
Hudson.
“Oh, no. No, no, no… he was going to find Brad. He was the man that…”
“Oh, babe. I’m sure he’ll be okay. He’s a good cop.”
As if pieces of a puzzle clicked together, my mind cleared to the real reason Hudson was so adamant about going after him.
He didn’t inform anyone.
He went after him… alone.
“Oh my god, I have to go.”
Her hands tightened in mine when I attempted to pull away and from the look in her eyes, she wasn’t about to let me go anywhere without spilling.
“He said he had to go after him, said it had to be him. I don’t think… Ash.”
Her face went white when she understood what I was trying to say and then she was the one that was pulling away, grabbing her purse from the bench before running out of the chapel, with me steps behind her.
Urgency and dread pumped through my veins and my mind was a mess of worries and what if’s.
All I knew was that we had to get to him.
I’d thought he was risking his life by leaving this morning, but I never imagined just how much of a risk it was.
If something happened to him…
“Look at me, Emberly. I know you’re scared and I know you’re freaking out. I would be, too. But we have to help him. You with me?”
Nodding, I forced my shocked body to move down the hall behind her, only pausing when we reached the open door of Tristan’s hospital room.
I didn’t hear what Ashlee leaned down and told him but when his wide, concerned gaze turned to me, I knew he understood.
“I’m going to call the sergeant. He’ll have someone come and get you and bring you to the scene. And Emberly?”
I was almost out of the door when he spoke my name, so I turned back until my eyes landed on his.
“Yeah?”
“If anyone asks, you’re his fiance. It’s the only way they’ll let you go.”
The thrill that passed through me barely penetrated the fog of worry I was living in but I nodded, anyways. Linking arms with Ashlee, we headed toward the entrance and one thought echoed in my mind the whole time.
He has to be okay.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Emberly
THE BLUR OF bright, flashing lights, police officers and yellow tape made me dizzy as Ashlee stopped her car in front of what looked like an old, abandoned building.
“This is it?”
“I think so. It’s the address Tristan’s sergeant gave him. Are you sure your ready for this?”
She knew how anxious all of this made me and as she raised a thin, blond eyebrow, I knew she hated this just as much as I did.
If I walked in to see Hudson hurt…
My heart ached just thinking about it.
A abrupt knock on the car’s window pulled me from my fearful thoughts and the officer behind it gestured for me to follow him.
“I’ll see you later. Thanks for coming with me.”
Squeezing me to her side, Ashlee hugged me.
“Go find your man.”
Smiling through the weight of worry that pressed heavily on my chest, I nodded, pulling away.
“Miss, come with me.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
We moved into the people swarming around the perimeter of the yellow, warning tape in front of the building and as the officer lifted it, urgency to see Hudson coursed through me.
The large, metal door was held open for me and with a shaky inhale, I stepped through.
The dark interior of the room was filled with men in blue, EMT, too.
My stomach clenched in fear, my thoughts instantly going to my Hudson.
Was he hurt?
“Baby!”
I settled at the sound of the voice; deep, growly with an edge of emotion I couldn’t place. Searching the room until my eyes landed on his, I saw it. There was a heady mixture of warmth, concern and relief swimming in those sky blue eyes and I was caught in them; frozen as I stared. It wasn’t until he drops his head to his chest on a rough shake and tears his arms from around his neck and holds them, wide at his sides that I my composure breaks and I go to him.
Hudson.
“Hud, God, are you okay?”
I climb him like a tree, urgent, needful fingers clasping his wide, broad shoulders and clinging when his large hands grasp my hips and he plants his face in my neck. I tighten my arms when I feel the painful relief vibrating off of his large frame now that I’ve finally made it into his arms.
“Yeah. Fuck, you feel good in my arms.”
Kissing his throat gently, I attempt to pull back, to look at him, but he won’t have it. Strong, binding arms tighten around my middle and I nod, knowing what he needs.
“Need to hold you, Darlin’. Could’ve lost you.”
Breathing in the unique, minty scent that is Hudson, I rest my face against his chest and let him do just that.
“What happened? Is he…”
His full lips meet my ear and I feel the muscles beneath my fingers clench, as if I’ve hit a nerve.
“He’s gone, Emberly. It’s over.”
Finally able to pull away from his hold, I whisper my fingers over his cheeks, noticing shadows in his gorgeous features I hadn’t noticed, before.
Breath We Take (Cuffed By Love Duet Book 1) Page 18